Texas Tech University architecture students will receive valuable feedback and enlightening musings from Mayne.
Texas Tech's College of Architecture (CoA) is virtually welcoming world-renowned architect Thom Mayne as a guest participant for one of the college's final reviews Tuesday (May 5). Mayne will provide valuable insight and feedback during this time.
"Thom Mayne is one of the most distinguished and influential architects in the world and the fact we have him participating in our final reviews is a credit to the school and to the students' work," said James P. Williamson, College of Architecture dean. "We're honored to host Thom and privileged to provide a platform for his commentary."
Final reviews afford students an opportunity to present their projects to a panel of architecture faculty and internal and external guests. The panel delivers constructive criticism to the students to better understand their projects, their narratives, and what they need to improve. It also allows all graduate and undergraduate students to hear different perspectives from scholars and practitioners about their projects and creates a design discourse within the school.
"I've been most impressed with our students' incredible good cheer, patience and ability to rise to the task of this remarkable and unusual transition we made this semester," Williamson added. "They are to be congratulated for their dedication."
Mayne founded Morphosis in 1972 as a collective practice of architecture, urbanism and design, rooted in rigorous research and innovation. Working globally across a broad range of project types and scales, Morphosis is recognized for its innovative and sustainable designs for cultural, civic and academic institutions, including the Bloomberg Center at Cornell Tech, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science and 41 Cooper Square, the academic building for The Cooper Union.
Throughout his career, Mayne has remained active in the academic world. In 1972, he helped to establish the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Since then, he has held teaching positions at Columbia University, Yale University (the Eliel Saarinen Chair in 1991), the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Eliot Noyes Chair in 1998), the Berlage Institute in Delft, Netherlands, the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and many other institutions around the world.
Mayne was a tenured professor at the University of California, Los Angeles Architecture and Urban Design (UCLA A.UD) from 1993 to 2019. There has always been a symbiotic relationship between Mayne's teaching and practice, evidenced in his concurrent position as Executive Director of the Now Institute, Morphosis' research arm that collaborates with academic institutions to create design-based solutions for the pressing issues of the day, from mobility, urban revitalization, and sustainability, to public policy, planning and community outreach.
Mayne's distinguished honors include the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Gold Medal (2013). He served on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama. With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 29 Progressive Architecture Awards, more than 120 AIA awards and numerous other design recognitions.
